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“Right? My parents insist on calling me Josephine, but no one else ever has. My college friends called me Serena, because I thought it was more grown up. But at home, it’s always been Rena.” She plays with her thumbnail. “Sometimes I think things would be different if my parents got along. You know. ForBeck.”
“You and Beck don’t look muchalike.”
“He’s my half brother. My dad couldn’t have any more kids, but he wanted a son. So they picked someone else’s sperm. My mom insisted Beck take her last name. My dad gives him a hard time because of it.” I turn that over, but she keeps going. “When you’re a kid, you think your parents know everything. If life doesn’t feel quite right, you assume it’s you. You start to wonder if you’recrazy.”
“You’re not crazy.” My response isautomatic.
Her gaze lifts to mine, uncharacteristicallyserious.
“The first time I had a panic attack, I thought I was dying. Then it happened again. Andagain.
“I always survived, even if I didn’t think I would. I got used to the tightness in my chest. I learned to deal with it. Then I started having them every week. For a while, it was almost everyday.
“One year, when I was twelve, I bugged my parents to take me to Disney World. It was the one thing I remember them caving on. I rode the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. Beck was too small, but I loved it. Something about the thrill outside of myself took my mind off what was happeninginside.”
Compassion works through me. It’s a piece of her I would never have guessed was there. “I didn’t know about theanxiety.”
She lifts a shoulder. “Eventually you stop arguing with it and learn to live with it. Find what fixes it, even if it’s only for a second. You like roller coasters,Wes?”
“I went to Disney once. I preferredEpcot.”
Her mouth twitches, and I’m glad I’ve made hersmile.
Even if it’s only inpart.
And only for amoment.
“It’s like there’s something eating you from the inside out, like an animal clawing at a door. And you can’t make it stop, but if you find the right distraction, the right diversion, you can make it go away for a few minutes.” The earnestness at the edge of her whisper strips away mydefenses.
“Antacid,” she says, and Ifrown.
“What?”
“In my purse.” I retrieve the bottle and she pops two and swallows. “What’re you thinking?” she whispers, toeing my leg with a sockfoot.
Looking at this girl hurts my heart because she makes you work for it. Not physically, but for the best stuff. What’s in her head, and hersoul.
“You can’t solve for it. You can’t ride a roller coaster or have some meaninglessfuck”—the word echoes in the quiet apartment “—and expect it to go away. And I’m at a loss as to why a woman as bright as you thinks she needs to screw her way out of her ownhead.”
Something occurs to me that makes all of this worse. I draw in a slow breath, resisting the urge to rub myneck.
“That’s what you wanted the night wemet.”
“Wes…”
I shake my head. “You didn’t even knowme.”
People hook up all the time, but the possibility that it could’ve happened so easily between us offends me. My reaction’s not quite rational, not quite appropriate, buthell.
I’m not feeling rational or appropriate rightnow.
Rena reaches for my tie, tugging slowly at the knot to loosen it. I feel her fingers work the top button of my shirt until it pops free. “That’s notfair.”
“What’s not.” I suck in a breath, realizing my pulse was pounding against the constraints of thecollar.
She shifts back. “Hating me for wantingyou.”
I have to bite back the answer on the tip of my tongue, the retaliation for that bullshit plus the desire her words fuel in me. “I don’t hate you. But I don’t get why you think whatever’s in here”—my hand comes to rest lightly over her breastbone, and I feel the heat of her body through the thin dress—“can be fixed by another person, in amoment.”
